Text of a Sermon Delivered Third Sunday in Advent 2008

Whenever I'm called to substitute-preach, I search online for the Episcopal Lectionary schedule - and the correct weekly readings upon which to base the sermon.

Once I've found what I'm seeking, just to make certain, I call the church to verify I'm at the right place.

This time I nailed it.

Except for the Old Testament.

And the New.

Other than those, I did find the right Psalm on my own.

Be that as it may, in the Gospel reading today, we see priests who also want to verify something -- in this case, not the Lectionary, but what this strange character - this John the Baptist, is all about.

Why?

The easy answer is that, per usual, throughout all the Gospels, whether it was John or Jesus, when the priests came a'callin' it was that they thought their authority was threatened and then, every time, without fail, they made plans to do something about it.

Can you imagine, this time, how angry they must have been - on account of folks, instead of seeking them out in their official capacity, in their robes of office, were heading down to the river to be baptized by a man, who as Mark reported last week in his Gospel, wore a camel skin suit and ate bugs.

Now, at this time in Israel, those uninterested in protecting their own self-interest, were holding out for a hero - someone who promised change, someone who kept the promise too (not unlike what featured in our recent Presidential campaign).

But, at the same time people seek change, they tend to keep their distance, and remain skeptical, as an in-built protection against being disappointed, hurt, again, and again, and again.

I was reading an article the other day about a woman who set out to follow every piece of advice from Oprah for one year.

When she embarked on this mission, she intended to prove people couldn't really change their lives by following Oprah - that it was all a come-on to sell books, diet fads, and such...

At year's end, instead, she ended believing what Oprah could do - if you were open to it - and that was introduce a certain honesty about an unsatisfactory situation, and then instill a willingness to change it, if you'll take the initiative.

In other words, a person can know themselves better if they discard their cynicism, confront their doubts, and then move beyond to make those positive changes.

In Scripture, we see the priests going out, like Oprah's doubter, to, as the Gospel says, "assess the authenticity" of this John the Baptist, this locust-eater garbed in animal skins, who's performing un-sanctioned baptisms.

Let's face it - are any of us sure, if we were seeking change, we'd be convinced it was for real upon first glance at John -- is this the person I'm supposed to entrust to change my life?

The other night, the Mrs. and I were watching a great holiday movie, Polar Express, the theme being there's this boy who wants to believe in Santa, but as he's growing up, he's becoming more and more skeptical about the whole thing --

Now, when I watched it, this time around, I noticed for example, in the town square at the North Pole where Santa hands out the first present, there were like a million elves there.

And I was thinking, if each elf took, maybe, 100 houses, and made presents just for those, then they might indeed be able to make all the Christmas presents in the world -- I got the calculator out - what about a million elves times X thousand, or ten thousand -- and I made these calculations the same way I do in the business world.

Even after I crunched those numbers satisfactorily, though, I still had nagging questions about the effectivness of Santa's overnight delivery service -- absolutely, postively? I mean we live on a dirt road where nobody will deliver overnight, anyway, and there's a lot more dirt roads in the world...

See, instead of learnng the same lesson the boy learned by the end of the movie, to simply believe, I was still being too practical about the whole thing.

Perhaps, as C.S. Lewis, once an atheist and skeptic, himself, wrote, if we just believe, plain and simple, we might end up, despite ourselves, surprised by joy.

To explain it another way, I can relate another experience along these lines I had where being too practical caused someone else not to believe.

A Miss Jones visited our homeless shelter from time to time. She wasn't actually homeless but living in a trailer. When she ran out of food, we'd take a trip to the supermarket to restock her shelves. For this, she was grateful and said many kind things about Christians and our ministry.

But Miss Jones also practiced a dangerous habit. Sometimes she would invite men, strangers, home, who, inevitably, after a few days, became abusive.

Then she would call and ask if I'd come over to toss them out.

Right.

Since evicting potentially dangerous felons from trailers wasn't specifically listed in the shelter job description, I'd suggest she call the police instead.

This disappointing advice turned her praise to scorn.

I certainly wasn't a John the Baptist to her anymore, pointing to Christ, and she told me all about it nothing spared.

Could I have done more? Maybe, probably - I don't know for sure - but I'll always feel guilty and hurt about the things she said.

In fact, it might have been her criticism that led, a week later, to doing something very uncharacteristic, and in violation of a very highly developed sense of self preservation and intolerance of pain, in others, but mostly myself, and that was to step between two arguing men, one of whom was holding a butcher knife, at the time.

I suppose I was trying to prove something - to Miss Jones, to myself, to others, maybe to God.

In John the Baptist's case, though, when he was challenged, you don't see false pride, or mock bravery, nor was it about proving something.

When he was challenged by the authorities, he said, plainly --

"No, I'm not the Messiah, or a Prophet, or anythng. I'm just a voice crying out in the wildnerness. I'm not the Light. I'm not even fit to tie the sandals of the Light. I'm only here to testify to the Light that's coming after."

It doesn't spell out how the priests reacted to John's reply. Some undoubtedly were relieved this potential threat to their authority admitted he wasn't the Messiah, and admitted even further, he wasn't much of anything at all, something we're not always prepared to accept about ourselves.

Maybe some of the priests were still nervous because he said, "You know it's not me but there is someone coming later that will rock your world."

There might even have been some people that day, quiet ones, dreamers, watching all this, who believed in John, sans skepticism, despite his appearance, and took away hope about the something exciting he said was coming after.

If we go back and read today's Old Testament passage from Isaiah, and accept it was written when the people of Israel were in exile in Babylon, so that, read in this way, it becomes about how to keep hope alive under very trying circumstances.

--that if you keep the faith, no matter what, then in God's time, broken hearts will be mended, ruined cities repaired, and the devastation of many generations healed.

In one translation, it reads there will be beauty for ashes -- and isn't that lovely in a resurrection-ish sort of way?

Today's readings are also not just about keeping hope alive - today's Psalm, 126, is about sustaining hope. This Psalm was written after the exiles came home to Jerusalem, which, indeed, fulfilled their initial hope -- but when they realized how much work it was going to be to actually repair the broken city, they became mighty discouraged. They lost hope it might ever be accomplished. And so what follows in Psalm 126 is a heartfelt plea to God for help.

Was the Israelites glass half full or half empty?

For Miss Jones, who I was speaking about earlier, there isn't even a glass to ponder - nor a dining room table, central heat, air conditioning, electricity, windows ... she might as well be in exile in Babylon since she lives far from anything with which we are familiar in our world.

Unlike the Israelites, she didn't go to God for help - she came up with her own survival plan.

Around mid-summer, she would take actions to conceive, and once she knew she was pregnant, she'd place an ad in the paper offering her unborn child for adoption to a family who'd take her in for the winter. Once Spring came, after giving birth, she'd return to the trailer.

I'm told she did this three times.

I was in the hospital room, one year, when she was in bed, the baby was in the basinet, and the adoptive parents were in the room ... hovering ... nervously... waiting to take the baby away.

For my part, it was extremely awkward, in the room that night, but for Miss Jones, it was simply another way she'd found to survive.

I've found, surprisingly, it's the same whenever there's a pregnant woman in a homeless shelter.

If you examine everything practically, then you think, you must think, this is a fine mess - how will she feed another child if she already has 3 or 4 or 5. Where will she live? How in the world can this work out?

But you find, sometimes, life isn't always about practicalities -- that when a woman gives birth in a shelter, it mystically transforms what's usually a dreary bleak place into a house of joy -- there's suddenly a Light, even in a shelter, like there was in a stable, that comes into the world, just like John the Baptist said it would.

I came across a marvelous passage in a novel the other day -

"When Tomas was born, he was very pre-mature. He weighed in at less than 3 lbs. I saw what I can only call a soul caught in that almost transparent body. I have never before been so close to such palpable evidence of the Spirit - Tomas - in his clear plastic womb, barely bigger than a hand."

To see a soul -- how cool is that?

There's one other tale out there that's my favorite Christmas story of all - it's Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol - and in that story one of things you read is how much of Scrooge's meanness derives from his hatred of Fred, his nephew, because his sister died giving Fred life.

No matter what we may think of Miss Jones' survival strategy, or women who give birth in shelters, or the circumstances of Fred's birth, we know one thing for sure - at the end of the day there's a blessed child in the world created in God's image, soul intact, carrying unlimited potential.

When these babies cry, those born in shelters, or in stables lain in mangers, babies that are despised for the sins of their parents, or because they are poor, or feared because they pose a threat to the authorities, or because the circumstances of their births are not what we expect --

then their unlikely births and survival, against the odds, testify to an unquenchable spirit - a Holy Spirit - which bids us serve, by challenging us to hold fast to what is good, to recognize blessings no matter where they come from or how they came to be, and to give thanks to the Creator no matter the circumstances --

lest we turn otherwise from God because our skepticism, disbelief, or need to preserve our worldly authority, depletes our soul so much we are unable to be surprised by joy.

Who are the John the Baptists in your life who point to Christ and make it easy to believe?

I can tell you a few of mine, here, this Christmas eve --

R, who rose from a sick-bed, to bring a meat loaf to the shelter when it was our time to serve, years ago;

J, a creator, like her Creator, of beautiful things;

K, our vicar and shepherd, through good times and bad, her's and our's;

A, the passionate advocate for political justice;

J, a sister who scolds her brother much, but still stands by him no matter what;

My bride, for marrying a man who believes in Santa, and has his head in the clouds more than his feet on the ground;

Perhaps, greatest of all, A, D, and beautiful godson, O, who carry our Light, our Spirit, forward with hope and promise.

All of these, all of you, in this congregation, here tonight, are my John the Baptists.

Like John, you aren't the Messiah, but you point to Christ all year long.

But, especially, at this time of year, in Advent, when all of us together believe the most amazing, strange, wonderful, miraculous true story - that a Light, a Star in the Eastern sky, the Son of God, a Savior, descends and is made man, and is lain in a manger Christmas morning.

Amen